Sharing Your Instagram Feed (or Not)

Q.If I sign up for Instagram, can everyone on the Internet see my photos or can I limit them to friends?

A. Like many other social media services, your Instagram posts can be public or private, depending on the level of sharing you wish to do. The site’s default setting is public, however — which means that anybody browsing the Instagram site can see your posts and user profile.

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You can change your Instagram account from public to private in the Android, iOS or Windows Phone apps.CreditThe New York Times

If you prefer to share your posts only with selected friends, you can turn on the Private Account setting. This makes your posts visible only to Instagram users you have personally approved. (Note that if you link your Instagram account to other social networks like Facebook and Twitter to share your posts, they may be visible to others on those sites.)

You can change your Instagram account from public to private in the Android, iOS or Windows Phone apps. On Android, open the app, tap the Profile icon in the bottom-right corner and then tap the Menu icon in the upper-right corner. In the Account section, tap the button next to Private Account to enable the setting.

On an iOS device, once you tap the Profile icon in the lower-right corner, tap the gear-shaped Settings icon in the top-right corner to get to the screen with the Private Account button. Windows Phone users can switch to private accounts by following the same steps.

Making your account private does not affect any of your existing Instagram followers, but new people who want to see your posts will have to send a request to follow your feed. You can see new follow requests on the app’s Activity tab (the icon directly to the left of the Profile icon) and decide if you want to accept or reject the user.

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